On Writing and What It Means to Me

Reverb December 2nd prompt: What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

Let me preface this by saying that I don't take my writing seriously. I write decently well, but I'm not incredibly gifted in that department. I was an English major who wrote most all of my papers the night before they were due, and rarely edited them for spelling and grammar problems. I still don't edit. I never expect my writing "skills" to actually support me financially in any way. After participating in NaNoWriMo for 5 years and winning all 5 years, every year I deleted the novels right after verifying their word count... all 5 years. There's a novel I want to write sometime in the next year, but I never expect an agent to pick it up, much less get it published. The quality just simply isn't there. So my first hindrance is skill.

I love my blog friends because they're insightful and smart in a way that I don't feel I can be. They share things about themselves that I would be too afraid to share, honest in ways that I can't imagine. I talk alot in situations where I'm comfortable, but one of my managers once told me that I keep personal things too close to the vest. I was slightly offended by that; I considered myself a pretty open person, especially when it comes to joking about medication and therapy. But then I realized that people quite frequently say something along the lines of "I didn't know that!" when I reference stories that I consider my basic life facts. Now I'm trying to figure out why exactly I'm not more open; not that I think my being relatively private is a bad thing, but if people aren't aware of basic life facts about me, that's a problem. The regrets post was a HUGE step for me in terms of sharing. Second hindrance: keeping it too close to the vest, though I'm getting better.

I'm also lazy. Putting effort into something so personal is scary. So I don't. Lazy lazy lazy.

So, with all that being said, my biggest hindrance to my writing is fear that it's not good enough. That if I actually tried, if I actually put considerably time, effort, and heart into writing, it wouldn't be enough to get the kind of attention I thought it deserved. Writing purposely for an audience is an entirely different beast than writing things (for fun) that may or may not be read. I love getting comments, getting feedback, and knowing that what I said meant something to someone. I don't love feeling rejected or that my work isn't good enough. So I don't try as hard as I should or want to, because being lazy and scared is comfortable and the anxiety of potential rejection is scary. Fourth and biggest hindrance: Fear.